Eurovision final 2023: Blood and glitter, a middle finger and Edgar Allan Partridge. It’s magnificentPatrick Freyne: This year’s trends are tethering your dancers, starting your song lying down, and no longer being maligned as silly and uncoolSun May 14 2023 - 00:53
I’m a Celebrity ... South Africa is a bit like Apocalypse Now – but with a darker messagePatrick Freyne: The deathless TV franchise will eventually come with more skulls on spikes, I’m sureFri May 12 2023 - 04:58
‘After years saying ‘This eejit again’, your Da is clearly the best person for The Late Late Show’Patrick Freyne: Yes, this was always Gay Byrne’s show, but I do have some thoughts as to who the next host should beTue May 09 2023 - 16:39
King Charles is a walking, breathing, polo-playing mascot for a gloomy nationPatrick Freyne: Britain’s new monarch is speaking his truths. I’m reaching for my truth in the thatch as I watchFri May 05 2023 - 05:00
‘Thank you for your understanding’: Patrick Freyne’s battle to make sense of ChatGPTWith the potential for AI to reshape how we all live our lives, and for millions of jobs to be lost to automation, there are much bigger issues at stakeSat Apr 29 2023 - 05:30
Gordon Ramsay: Some day man’s ancient dreams will be realised and we will know for sure what he smells ofPatrick Freyne: Merely seeing the celebrity chef conjures up the rich musk of an expensive aftershaveFri Apr 28 2023 - 05:30
Aoife Barry: ‘The structure and the inbuilt rules in each [platform] dictate how you perform your personality there’Journalist reflects on her ‘troubled relationship’ with the internet, including being harassed by a man who was subsequently jailedSat Apr 22 2023 - 05:00
‘I would like you to stop talking so tragically about your life,’ Chris Eubank hisses at GazzaPatrick Freyne: On Scared of the Dark, Danny Dyer has locked eight celebs in a pitch-black bunker. He’s basically the angel of deathFri Apr 21 2023 - 05:00
Country star Philomena Begley on performing at 80: ‘It’s my life and my medication’The Queen of Country, who will feature on a new range of An Post stamps, is grateful to still be singing at her ageSat Apr 15 2023 - 05:00
Patrick Freyne: The main thing I’m learning from Obsession is that having an affair is way easier than I thoughtPatrick Freyne: Yes, it’s the 1980s again, baby, with Netflix’s erotic thriller Obsession breathlessly leading the wayFri Apr 14 2023 - 05:00
‘Are you really a hit man?’ the Kinsellas would ask, and I’d admit I haven’t killed even one measly personPatrick Freyne: It’s always crime with the Kin family. If they’re not in the process of criming, they’re talking about crimes of the past and futureFri Apr 07 2023 - 05:00
Baz Ashmawy: Growing up mixed race, people would remind me, ‘You’re not Irish’The TV presenter reflects on future ambitions, growing up ‘different’ in Ireland, the challenges of fatherhood - and regrets over his relationship with his own dadSat Apr 01 2023 - 07:00
A mortgage-free woman in a rotting wedding dress? Absolute legendSteven Knight’s new BBC version of Great Expectations is like a Burt Bacharach song covered by a good metal bandFri Mar 31 2023 - 05:00
Eviction stories: ‘There’s nothing out there… I really, really don’t see how we’re going to find a flat’Threshold has received queries from 1,853 renters who face eviction once the ban liftsSat Mar 25 2023 - 05:00
People have started to talk like professional wrestlers, and there’s no going backPatrick Freyne: Rise and Fall, Channel 4′s new reality show, will be studied by political scientists for yearsFri Mar 24 2023 - 05:45
Deadly Conversations: ‘Do they want a burial? Do they want to be cremated?’The cafe that carves out a space where people are welcome to talk about feelings of grief and lossSat Mar 18 2023 - 05:00
Patrick Freyne: When Brad’s Penis pops up, I welcome him like he’s Norm from CheersBrad’s Penis is the most compelling character on Sex/Life, back on Netflix after two years. Presumably everyone involved needed time to rehydrateFri Mar 17 2023 - 05:45
Photos of 50 Patricks: ‘As an Irish man you get the Paddy thing thrown at you’Photographer Ross O’Callagahan has captured an array of Patricks, Paddys and Pats in their natural habitatsSat Mar 11 2023 - 06:00
Gary Younge interview: ‘My mum was a single parent with three kids and therefore we were supposed to be into drugs’Gary Younge observes how attitudes to race are changing in Ireland, Britain and elsewhereSat Mar 11 2023 - 05:00
Why We Sing by Julia Hollander: Passionate about the power of singingA chapter by chapter account of the very specific ways singing has affected this author’s lifeFri Mar 10 2023 - 04:43
‘Before I would have held my husband’s hand walking around the streets. But now I wouldn’t’A recent report found that 2022 was ‘the most violent year’ for LGBTQ+ people across Europe and Central Asia in the past decadeSat Mar 04 2023 - 05:00
The Mandalorian and Baby Yoda are back with a bunch of space Enoch BurkesPatrick Freyne: The Disney+ series is a delightful, morally simple adventure, like Rawhide or The Incredible HulkFri Mar 03 2023 - 05:00
Why is the apparently harmless idea of 15-minute cities exercising conspiracy theorists?An urban-planning concept that we should have everything we need within easy reach of our homes is now being presented as an Orwellian nightmareSat Feb 25 2023 - 05:00
‘I’m supersexy. I don’t have to try real hard if I’m honest’: Perfect Match is remarkably like my own lifePatrick Freyne: Many people are now trapped in a cycle of reality-television dating shows, and even more people are trapped watching itFri Feb 24 2023 - 05:00
The contemporary Irish are a simple people, content to be shown pictures of nice housesOne of our favourite things in Ireland is looking inside other people’s houses. Yes, of course I like Home of the Year. What am I? Dutch?Fri Feb 17 2023 - 05:00
‘Like a liquidised My Little Pony’: Prime Hydration is €12.99 a bottle. Our wine critic joins a tastingTeens are going wild for the soft drink being marketed by the YouTubers Logan Paul and KSI. It’s sending prices sky high. Is it worth the money?Thu Feb 16 2023 - 05:00
Why am I sexually attracted to that jacket potato singing Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah?Patrick Freyne: I enjoy The Masked Singer. It makes me feel drunk. And inevitably Rita Ora is thereFri Feb 10 2023 - 05:00
The Apprentices are basically why the world went wrong and you’re working for a jargon-gibbering loonPatrick Freyne: Lord Sugar’s swaggering go-getters believe they can turn their hand to anything, no specific knowledge requiredFri Feb 03 2023 - 05:00
Refugees welcome: ‘Chanting ‘get them out’ to the most vulnerable. What does that achieve?’‘My message to other communities? “Get out, get involved and you will feel much more in control”’Sat Jan 28 2023 - 05:00
Stubbly British soldiers shouting at people in hoods: what’s not to like?Patrick Freyne: If you enjoy muck, tears and vomit and feel nothing but warmness towards the British military, then SAS: Who Dares Wins is for youFri Jan 27 2023 - 05:00
253 people, 253 stories, 253 words each: The re-creation of an internet novelGeoff Ryman’s 1996 hypertext fiction about passengers on a doomed London Underground train is back on the web, a chronicle of a different worldWed Jan 25 2023 - 05:00
How to be a patient: It’s okay to make a fuss about yourselfIt’s an Irish thing not wanting to be a bother, but you have a right to good careSun Jan 22 2023 - 05:00
Patrick Freyne: Just look at your da’s happy little face as he gets to say ‘Well I’ve never heard of him!’Dancing with the Stars does a useful service for the households of grumpy das, distracting them much as one might use colourful mobiles with babiesFri Jan 20 2023 - 05:00
Patrick Freyne: With its overconfident boors and swaggering sexpots, it’s like any small Irish townAn outlandishly dressed foreigner arrives in France, where she struggles to adapt to their sexy Gallic ways. No, it’s not Emily in Paris but Marie AntoinetteFri Jan 13 2023 - 05:00
Patrick Freyne’s TV of 2022: Liam Neeson’s bitter words, The Love Boat with full frontal nudity, and a farewell to a legendThe White Lotus, The Bear, Severance and Somebody Somewhere were unmissableFri Dec 30 2022 - 05:00
Emily in Paris: An adorable psychopath with a fatal inability to speak French. What’s not to like? Patrick Freyne: Emily in Paris is a work of evil genius. I’m obsessed by it – and I think I’ve figured out the rules that underpin its successFri Dec 23 2022 - 05:00
‘I think about sex every five seconds. It might be an illness’Patrick Freyne: The Too Hot to Handle hunks have been lured to an island where they’ll lose a $200,000 prize if they have sexFri Dec 16 2022 - 05:00
Patrick Freyne: My schemes to ruin God’s birthday have not been going wellIf I’ve learned anything from Netflix’s Christmas films, it’s that people can’t get enough of bereaved single parents with adorable children and badly run businessesFri Dec 09 2022 - 05:00
Patrick Freyne: As a toad sits on his head, it’s clear Matt Hancock is inured to all humiliationOn I’m a Celebrity, the former UK health secretary eventually wears down his appalled jungle mates with his vague and masochistic pleasantnessFri Dec 02 2022 - 05:00
Life in a homeless hub: ‘I have nowhere to go... If I’m upset, I get under my bed’Rachel (9) travels from Gardiner Street in Dublin to her school near her former home in TallaghtFri Nov 25 2022 - 19:39
‘Out of my way!’ Ryan Tubridy cries, terrifyingly: Behind the scenes at The Late Late Toy ShowWe join the host for a sneak peek behind the scenes at the biggest TV show of the yearFri Nov 25 2022 - 06:00
I know Irish Times readers, and many of you think you have a supernaturally gifted teen. You do notPatrick Freyne: Wednesday Addams’s school is filled with vampires, werewolves and sirens. Your perfectly average child just read some books onceFri Nov 25 2022 - 05:30
Patrick Freyne: If these men don’t do the back-pat thing, they will accidentally have sexThe high-fiving hunks work for the silver-haired real-estate Svengali at the heart of Buying Beverly Hills. Which is basically Selling Sunset meets King LearFri Nov 18 2022 - 05:00
Tesco’s weird take on Irishness, Boots’ night-bus terror: The Christmas TV ads, 2022Patrick Freyne: John Lewis’s skateboarding ad is moving. Aldi’s Kevin the Carrot is still theologically perplexingTue Nov 15 2022 - 10:22
Matt Hancock burrows in the dankness, sniffing out treats amid the vermin. He also does this on I’m a CelebrityPatrick Freyne: I’m a Celebrity ... Get Me Out of Here! is a haven for celebrities in reduced circumstances, a debtors’ prison where they go to rebrandFri Nov 11 2022 - 05:00
Fergal Keane, war addict: ‘You feel like a bit of a freak,’ he says quietlyBBC reporter writes about conflict zones, breakdown and recovery in his new memoirSun Nov 06 2022 - 05:00
Teenagers talk porn: ‘Whoever’s got a smart phone watches it. It’s free. It’s everywhere’Children as young as eight find pornographic images. A pioneering programme helps teenagers deal with itSat Nov 05 2022 - 06:00
Patrick Freyne on Ireland’s Fittest Family: Screaming at people to be better used to be known as parentingI sometimes find it hard to relate to the people on the RTÉ series. They’re so lithe and sinewy and uplifted and in motionFri Nov 04 2022 - 05:00
From north Ukraine to south Dublin, aged 12: ‘I worried about things a child shouldn’t’Yeva Skalietska was 12 when she fled the war. Patrick Freyne interviews the young Dublin-based authorSat Oct 29 2022 - 05:00
Patrick Freyne: Nurses! They think they’re so great, healing the sick and comforting the dyingOn Love Is Blind, ‘The pods are now open’ is the sort of thing you might hear in a 1970s sci-fi film about an imagined dystopian 2022Fri Oct 28 2022 - 05:00
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